Upgrade: TFS 2005 with Default Instance to Orcas with Named Instance

Upgrade: TFS 2005 with Default Instance to Orcas with Named Instance

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Orcas supports Named Instances of SQL Server. In VS 2005 we only supported default instance of SQL Server this was a major pain point for customers using SQL farms. We fixed this in Orcas and now you can use named instances of SQL. This post is about how to upgrade from VS 2005 TFS using default instance to Orcas using Named Instances.

As I mentioned in my last post related to Upgrade. We want you to make sure you have a working Whidbey before trying to upgrade to Orcas. We don't want you to change the configuration of the server.

The steps to upgrade are as follows.

  • Run Orcas TFS installer to upgrade your VS2005 TFS server using Default Instance. At end of this process you should have Orcas server with default instance.
  • Next take full backup of all the TFS Databases. You can refer to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms253070(VS.80).aspx for the process of taking backup. Easiest way is to use SQL Management studio.
  • Restore all these backed up databases on Named Instance of SQL Server you want to use with TFS. Now you should have all the databases moved to new instance. You can refer to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms252458(VS.80).aspx for more details on restoring databases.
  • We have some information in sysmessages table in masterdb and SQL jobs in MSDB. These are not restored by previous step. To get these you can either run repair or you can run tfsdb.exe from your tools directory
    • TfsDb.exe install /server:"<servername>\<instancename>" /property:"TFS_SERVICE_ACCOUNT=<TFSSERVICEACCOUNT>;TFS_REPORTING_ACCOUNT=<TFSREPORTSACCOUNT>;LCID=1033" /log:d:\logfile.txt
  • At this point TFS is not going to work as TFS AT does not know anything about the new location of the databases.
  • You can use TFSAdminUtil to update the system with new SQL Instance information.
    • Command: TFSAdminUtil RenameDt NewDTServerName\InstanceName

Now you should have your TFS configuration ready to go. You can also refer to Renaming TFS Server topic.